Recipe: Soba Noodle Salad with Asian-Style Peanut Sauce

Finally we have some nice weather in London this week — beautiful, in fact. Sunny with temperatures just below summery — which is totally fine with me. What better way to celebrate that than with a cool, Asian-inspired peanut noodle salad?

vibrant

My recipe was inspired by one on The Cozy Apron. I added more vegetables — admittedly, though, in the rush to get everything chopped and mixed together I forgot the cilantro and peanuts — and used buckwheat noodles (aka soba noodles) instead of regular linguine to boost the health factor. The result? Pure deliciousness. We made a lot on purpose so we’d have leftovers to eat for lunch the next day.

This is such an easy dish to throw together — and it’s a one-dish meal, making prep and clean-up a breeze. The peanut sauce’s flavors complement the chicken, noodles, and vegetables well. (For the vegetarians out there, you could just as easily make this with tofu instead of chicken; or skip the protein all together, since buckwheat noodles themselves have plenty of it.)

Buckwheat Noodle Salad with Asian-Style Peanut Sauce(adapted from this recipe)

Makes 4-6 generous servings

Ingredients

Noodle Salad:

500 g buckwheat (soba) noodles, cooked as per the package directions, then rinsed and tossed with oil

2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, boiled & shredded

1/2 small red cabbage, chopped small

1 carrot, grated or sliced into thin strips

1/2 cucumber, sliced into thin strips

1 red pepper, sliced into thin strips

3 green onions, minced

handful of cilantro, minced

1/4 cup peanuts, roughly chopped

Peanut Sauce:

4 tbsp sunflower oil

4 tbsp rice vinegar

4 tbsp soy sauce

4 tbsp honey

3 tbsp natural peanut butter

juice of 1 lime

2 garlic cloves, minced

1-2 tsp red pepper flakes

Procedure

Cook the chicken (you can do this the day before or earlier in the day, if you prefer): boil a pot of water and drop in the chicken breasts. Cook at a gentle boil for 20-25 minutes. Let the chicken cool, then gently pull it apart with two forks or your fingers.

When you’re ready to begin preparing everything else, cook the noodles according to the package directions, then rinse them well and toss them with some oil.

While the noodles are cooking, make the sauce by whisking together all the necessary ingredients.

Chop all of the vegetables and throw them into a large bowl.

When the noodles are ready, mix in the chicken and sauce, then add everything to the vegetables and mix carefully but thoroughly until everything is combined. Serve cold or slightly warm.